Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Squamous cell carcinoma is the most common form of malignancy of the oral cavity, and is often proceeded by oral potentially malignant disorders OPMD. Early detection of oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma oral cancer can improve survival rates. The current diagnostic standard of surgical biopsy with histology is painful for patients and involves a delay in order to process the tissue and render a histological diagnosis; other diagnostic tests are available that are less invasive and some are able to provide immediate results.
This is an update of a Cochrane Review first published in Primary objective: to estimate the diagnostic accuracy of index tests for the detection of oral cancer and OPMD, in people presenting with clinically evident suspicious and innocuous lesions.
No restrictions were placed on the language or date of publication when searching the electronic databases. We conducted citation searches, and screened reference lists of included studies for additional references. Two review authors independently screened titles and abstracts for relevance. Eligibility, data extraction and quality assessment were carried out by at least two authors, independently and in duplicate. Nine datasets assessed two combined index tests. There were no eligible diagnostic accuracy studies evaluating blood or salivary sample analysis.
Two studies were classed as being at low risk of bias across all domains, and 33 studies were at low concern for applicability across the three domains, where patient selection, the index test, and the reference standard used were generalisable across the population attending secondary care.
At present none of the adjunctive tests can be recommended as a replacement for the currently used standard of a surgical biopsy and histological assessment. Given the relatively high values of the summary estimates of sensitivity and specificity for oral cytology, this would appear to offer the most potential. Combined adjunctive tests involving cytology warrant further investigation.
